Timeframe
2008–2012
Funding
Health Research Council of New Zealand
COMPASS staff
Peter Davis
Barry Milne
Karl Parker
Jessica McLay
Martin von Randow
Collaborators
Health Services Research Centre
Jaikishan Desai
Jacqueline Cumming
University of Otago
Phil Hider
Patrick Graham
Description
This project was inspired by the fact that investment in health doubled during the first decade of the 21st Century, with much of that absorbed by the hospital sector. We aimed to see if the country had seen a good return on that investment, in terms of throughput, output, and the quality of care provided.
We linked data from the New Zealand Health Information Service with core hospital (National Minimum Data Set) and mortality data, and examined the trends observed over the 2001–2009 period on a large variety of measures. The study influenced health outcomes both directly through the potential for improvement in the quality of care, and indirectly by contributing hard evidence on the productivity and effectiveness of investment in hospitals and related services.